Time's now on the Wings' side

Red Wings assistant GM Jim Nill says that Detroit feels more confident than it has in a very, very long time about the concept of allowing its prospects to mature according to their own schedules, and he told the Windsor Star's Jim Parker that a simple fact underlies his belief--the Wings aren't an "old" team anymore:

June 24, Windsor Star: "This is the best we've been for average age of the team," Nill said.
"In the last 10 years, we always had the clock ticking on a couple of guys. First, it was Larry Murphy and Igor Larionov and then (Steve) Yzerman and (Brendan) Shanahan. With (Henrik) Zetterberg, (Pavel) Datsyuk, (Valtteri) Filppula, (Johan) Franzen and the core of our team, our average age has come way down. That gives us more time to develop these players to see what we've really got."

That being said, Nill feels that the Wings made the right decision in committing to prospects who are, by and large, college-bound at this past weekend's Entry Draft because their current crop of players and prospects has bought the next generation developmental time:

"The new CBA forced us to change our philosophy," Nill said. "Before, if we were going to roll the dice on a player, it was going to be a European. Now, it's on college kids. What we're looking for the most is development time. We want to get the most development time for a player before we have to make a decision on him."

Nill said the age of the Wings' NHL lineup is also allowing management to turn over the roster at a controlled pace.

"We weren't desperate," Nill said. "Having the influx of young players coming at forward and defence definitely affected the choices we made. We're set with good players coming for three to five years. It definitely affected our thinking at the draft."